


White Knight Fables

by EvilMuffins



Series: Tofu shorts [2]
Category: Dangan Ronpa, Dangan Ronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls
Genre: Emotional Baggage, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Love Confessions, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28603113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilMuffins/pseuds/EvilMuffins
Summary: She had been different concerning Togami, of course. So love-struck, it was sickening.And maybe he was sick. Maybe it was catching.***A collection of Togafuka shorts.
Relationships: Fukawa Touko/Togami Byakuya, Naegi Komaru & Togami Byakuya
Series: Tofu shorts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095941
Comments: 7
Kudos: 28





	1. Never Been Loved Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt was "You've never been loved before, I can tell"

Togami hesitated, any sharpness that generally would have found a foothold on his tongue at any given moment wholly blunted.

Byakuya Togami was at a loss for words.

“W-what’s wrong?” Fukawa grimaced, genuinely concerned for his health as she leaned closer, inspecting his face much as she had the last book Naegi had borrowed from her. He had bent the corner, no doubt.

All the while they had been locked inside of the school building, whenever Togami had witnessed Fukawa anywhere near the vicinity of the other students, her face had always held a scowl, or a frown, or a sneer. It had been little wonder, of course, considering the circumstances and the less than confidence-arousing nature of their fellow classmates (Naegi included).

She had been different concerning Togami, of course. So love-struck, it was sickening.

And maybe he was sick. Maybe it was catching.

The expression on her face was soft and natural, like a bowl of porridge served in a bed by the family butler when Togami had fallen ill as a child. Warm, uncomplicated. Nourishing.

A Togami did not fall ill. Or at least so his father had said, so long ago. The man’s voice felt like a strange dream now, a nightmare.

So it went without saying that Togami was sound of mind. Why, then, did the proper course of action elude him?

_‘I love you…’_

Fukawa had told him as much before, countless times. He had rebuffed her, in the past of course, foolish as he had been and perhaps still was. But now, Togami reciprocated the sentiment. There were times in which lies were useful, or even necessary, but Togami was finished with lying to himself of all people, and never to Fukawa. Not to the woman who had seen the worst of him and stood by his side, seen the best of him and put him in his place.

_‘I love you…’_

They were together now, she and him. Dating, if you will. And Togami had made the proper attempts to demonstrate his affection through gifts and gestures, even with his body, and with a vulnerability that had been glimpsed by no other.

Yet, still, the words eluded him.

Finally, as Fukawa’s palm caressed his cheek, Togami placed his own hand over top her own.

“Touko…”

“Yes!?” Her cheeks turned pink even in the low light. Although little time had passed since he had began to use her given name, it tasted right on his lips.

Togami went to push up his glasses only to remember that they lay on the night table. “I’m afraid that I’m not certain what comes next at this point.”

A shadow fell over Fukawa’s face, pained. Her fingers, typically cold, felt like Spring. “You’ve… really never been loved before… have you?”

And Togami thought back, to his life as a child, as a teen, as a young adult before entering Hope’s Peak.

“No,” he admitted. “I have not.”

It wasn’t an admission of defeat, and Togami felt no guilt within the concept. Rather, an emotion he could not name nipped him in the heels as he ran from it. The small, scared boy with the long hair ran and ran and ran. But Byakuya Togami sat steadfast, half-naked in bed.

He managed a smirk, he imagined. Or it might have mirrored Fukawa’s former grimace. “Would you perhaps teach me how?”

“Y-yes!” Fukawa squealed. “Yes, yes, yes!”


	2. Art and artist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post canon, Future Foundation AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is something I had written for the tofu exchange a few years ago. I was in weird mood due to lack of engagement on my fics at the time and orphaned it. I recently decided to revise it and reupload!

Komaru Naegi soon discovered that she had learned a great many things after being freed from her imprisonment in that cramped Towa City apartment: How to fight in order to protect a dear friend; how to make life or death choices; how to take care of herself… and the startling notion that real life romance is, in fact, considerably different from the typical shoujo manga.

She just couldn’t understand it.

Byakuya Togami was undeniably head over heels in love with Touko Fukawa (a fact which he would, on no uncertain terms, deny), and had been for sometime now. So why, then, wasn’t he pushing her up against the office wall, ravishing her lips until she was breathless?

That was always how it went in her manga: The love interest would steal the heroine’s first kiss, no request for permission falling from the confident smirk drawn across his boyishly angular face.

“Fukawa!”

“Y-yes?” Fukawa peeped, and Komaru saw the hope twinkling behind her glasses as her eyes darted up from the notebook she had been furiously scrawling in, pen halting in mid-air as if the very sound of her name from his lips had grabbed hold of her wrist. If it had been Komaru--or anyone else, for that matter--attempting to gain her attention while she was in the midst of plotting out her newest novel, nothing short of a second apocalypse breaking out would have caused her to take notice.

“Would you take these files up to Naegi in his office?” Togami asked, brandishing a stack of papers. The request had been posed as a question, rather than a demand, Komaru realised, a smile on her face. While the stern man that Touko had spoken of each night as they fell asleep in the otherwise abandoned hotel still stormed about the halls of the Future Foundation building, even Komaru could tell that something was different from that of her best friend’s stories, and _not_ because of the… ‘embelishments’ that Touko had added to the impassioned recountings.

“O-of course!” Touko agreed readily, taking off toward the elevators with the papers clutched tightly to her chest.

This left Komaru alone to blink up at Togami, attempting to recall if this were the first time they had been alone together since she and Touko had been retrieved from the disaster zone some months earlier.

“May I help you?” Togami asked, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose despite the fact that Komaru had never actually noticed them to slip in the entire time that she had known him.

“Why don’t you just tell Touko-chan that you love her back?” Komaru asked point blank, hoping that her words would come across with the youthful innocence hopefully afforded by her baby-round face, rather than the frustration that she truly felt.

Although Komaru hadn’t thought it possible for the man to become any more ridged, Togami stiffened, standing as still as if he were drawn on a page in one of Komaru’s manga.

“Tell her…” he repeated slowly, as if Komaru had spoken in a foreign language, something that he likely would have processed far more easily than what she actuall had said. “That I _what?_ This- this is a work environment, and I hardly think that it’s appropriate to-“

“That didn’t sound like a ‘no’,” Komaru insisted, hands planted upon her hips. “So what’s stopping you?”

An odd light flickered in Togami’s eyes, and although it could have been atributed to the fluorescent bulbs overhead glinting in his glasses, Komaru had seen the very same expression lurking behind Touko’s wire frames many times before.

_Fear…?_

The man who had survived a cut-throat race to become sole heir while just a child; had lived through a vicious killing game; had faced down a city full of murderous robots in the midst of an apocalypse; had waited stalwart for rescue in that very same city under siege. _Byakuya Togami_ was afraid.

“Go help Fukawa,” he uttered flatly. “Your brother probably has her waylaid with his incessant chatter again.”

What possible reason could Togami ever have for being afraid of letting Touko know that he returned her feelings? Komaru pondered as she wandered down the hall. She certainly wasn’t going to turn him down. Could Syo have been the problem? But she loved him as well, and wouldn’t dare hurt him.

The love interests in her manga were never afraid…

Turning around so quickly that the sole of her shoe squealed on the tile, Komaru jogged back toward the office where she had left Togami, allowing the idea suddenly playing through her head to nip at her heels.

The office door flew open, and Komaru almost thought that she saw Togami jump, just slightly. Probably just itchy, she thought generously. Being cranky would do that to a person. Touko always seemed to be more on the itchy side than not, at least.

Grabbing the last blank sheet of paper out of the printer tray on the desk and not bothering to refill it, Komaru waved it in Togami’s direction.

“I know how you can express your feelings to Touko-chan, without actually saying them out loud!” Komaru declared, using her free hand to snatch up both a pencil and pen as well, as if waving two writing implements instead of one would drive home her point without need for explanation.

Togami wrinkled up his nose so emphatically that his glasses barely avoided slipping off his face entirely. “Do you really think that I have time to scribble some sort of confession note like a grade-schooler? I’ll have you know that I trusted Fukawa’s judgment in allowing you to intern here at Future Foundation as junior member now that she has become a full-fledged asset among our ranks, however you are now giving me cause to have my doubts about permitting a child to fritter away our time.”

“You’re wrong!” Komaru challenged, crossing her arms over her chest, still holding the pen and paper.

“Oh?” Togami replied shortly, daring her to prove him wrong.

He was so grumpy, Komaru thought again. Although she still wasn’t completely certain that she too saw whatever it was that her friend saw in him, they suited one another and Komaru was determined to make this work. If she could help to save all of Towa City, she could almost certainly get one (1) sour-puss to admit his feelings, couldn’t she?

“It’s not going to be a note at all! I want to you to draw a confession.”

“A _what_ now?” Despite the unwelcoming tone in his voice, Komaru thought that she could detect a glimmer of curiosity dawning at the corner of his eye.

“Well,” Komaru said, pulling out a seat for Togami at his own desk, before pushing aside the keyboard and mouse to neatly layout the paper and drawing utensils, hoping to appeal to his sensibilities. “Since you seem to be having trouble communicating your feelings verbally, I thought that maybe you could draw them! You know, like when I was little and I got upset over something, but didn’t want to talk about it. Mom would give me paper and crayons, so I could draw it instead!”

“Need I remind you, that I am not the child in this situation,” Togami replied petulantly, although that did nothing to stop him from sitting down on the rolling chair and picking up an entirely different pen from the one that had been offered to him.

The office was a silent for a time, save for the scritching of the pen.

Komaru, busying herself by re-filing already filed folders so as not to look over the impromptu artist’s shoulder, found herself more than a little impressed at the man’s confidence in skipping over any preliminary pencil work entirely. Just as she had thought, he must be pretty good at drawing on top of everything else. Komaru smiled. Maybe Touko really was onto something after all…

“Togami-chi!” The office door flew open so vigorously that Komaru nearly thought a sudden hurricane had whipped up, bringing an uprooted palm tree along with it. “I started up a betting pool around the office that you would _hate_ the new granola bar they just added to vending machines, so like, my dinner for the next week is kind of riding on you tasting this thing-”

“Get _OUT_!”

Komaru had never heard Togami screech before, she thought as he threw himself bodily across the page he had been diligently working on.

“Paper work,” Komaru explained apologetically, slowly shutting the door in front of a bewildered Hagakure. “Report on, uh, getting the Towa City toilet factory back in working order. Due today. You know how it is. _Shhh_!”

Once Hagakure had been shooed away, Togami returned to his task, stone-faced save for the bit of extra color staining his cheeks.

“I only did this so you’d leave me be,” Togami declared after a time, straightening out a crick in his neck before jabbing the finished page in Komaru’s general direction.

Komaru squinted at the artwork held between her hands. It was certainly… more abstract than she had expected of him.

“Darling!” the second person in the past half-hour intruded upon Togami’s office. “I was finally able to make my escape. Naegi just never shuts up, does he?”

“It seems to run in the family,” Togami replied pointedly, frowning in Komaru’s direction.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Touko muttered, craning to peek at the artwork held in Komaru’s hands, before taking it from her entirely, brows furrowed, thumb jammed between her teeth. “H-hey, Omaru, did you write this? It's actually really good... The speech bubbles at least, They- they’re actually pretty romantic. No comment on the art.”

Komaru shook her head, beaming at the man beside her. “Togami-san did.”

“Byakuya-sama…" Touko gasped. "I don’t know what to say…. I’ve never been so happy!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him.

Komaru was glad that she had understood the comic at least, despite the... 'rustic' art style. That was love for you, she supposed with a grin, shutting the door behind her.


	3. White's Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another reupload! I had written this for my friend Zenonaa a few years back, but also orphaned it due to lack of interest from other readers. Enjoy this revised edition!

_3…_

Fukawa chewed at her pencil.

_2…_

She thumbed the corner of her notebook.

_1…_

She tugged at her end of her braid.

“Alright class!” their teacher chimed, clapping her hands together. “Be sure to review chapter five, and I’ll see you all tomorrow!”

Once the teacher had left, Togami would surely strut up to Fukawa’s desk at any moment. Any moment now… _Yes_! there he was sliding out from his desk, packing up his books… And walking! He was walking straight toward her!

…And past her.

“B-Byakuya-sama!” Fukawa peeped, leaping up from her desk, chair squeaking against the linoleum. Her eyes darted from his broad back, down toward the planner lying open on her desk. She wasn’t mistaken; it was indeed March 14th,, White’s Day.

“Yes?” he said, pausing to turn round and face her with a questioning glance.

“D-don’t you maybe have some sort of c-card you’d like to give me?” Fukawa prompted, pushing the tips of her pointer fingers together.

She had given him one on February 14th, after all. He hadn’t even thrown it out… not that she had just happened to notice his trash while he was taking it out, or anything like that.

“A card?” Frowning as he adjusted his glasses, Togami seemed to mull this over for a moment, almost as if he had forgotten the definition of such a common word. Finally coming to some sort of conclusion, Togami reached into his breast pocket, producing a small rectangle of paper, which he handed over to Fukawa’s waiting, yet slightly sweaty, hands.

With that, he strode from the room, leaving Fukawa with her pounding heart as she flipped the card over to read the embossed message printed on the front.

_‘Togami Byakuya_

_Super High school Level Heir….’_

“A-a business card!?” Fukawa sputtered to herself.

On her way back the dorm that evening, Fukawa’s shoulders began to hunch instinctively, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end, as a gaggle of girls came tittering past her. It took a moment for her to realize that the one in the lead was Maizono, surrounded by simpering groupies from another class.

“Do I have s-something on my face?” Fukawa hissed, thumbing at her mole.

Maizono paused as the other girls continued on gossiping without her. “It’s Togami-kun-“

“B-Byakuya-sama certainly does not have anything on his face!” Fukawa insisted.

“No,” Maizono replied patiently, a conspiratorial smile crossing over her face, “but he is waiting outside the girls’ dorm for some reason…”

Without another word, Fukawa trotted through the herd of girls, nearly bowling them over ( _serves them right_ ), rushing straight for the dorm building where, sure enough, Togami stood outside, clearing his throat as she approached.

“Fukawa,” he greeted simply.

“Y-yes?”

“Upon having spoken to Naegi earlier, although it pains me to admit, it would appear that I was perhaps…remiss in our earlier interaction.”

“O-oh?” Fukawa asked, her heart giving a hopeful thump against her ribcage.

Togami reached into the schoolbag hanging from his shoulder, pulling out a plain white envelope.

“He has informed me that you might perhaps have been inquiring about a different type of card, likely of a similar sentiment to the one you had given me last month. Not being one to enjoy a personal debt hanging my head, I saw fit to purchase you this-“

Without even waiting to open the small red envelope, Fukawa threw her arms around his shoulders with a ear-splitting squeal.


	4. Simply Solace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One final repost from my orphaned fics. Very short, but even on a reread, I still think it's kind of sweet.

A word jotted here, a sentence scrawled there.

A braid tugged loose from its elastic, and a manuscript left enthusiastically forgotten.

Sheets crinkling, a sigh.

Glasses, two pairs, placed overlapping on the night stand.

Vision blurred, but the world made more vivid.

There is ‘less’ now.

Less killing, less fear and uncertainty, less cruel expectations, less neglect.

Fewer layers between them, as a tie coils to the floor, a stiff shirt flutters aside.

The ‘nevers’ fade away too.

_‘Never. It’ll only make you weak.’_

_‘Never! You’re too strange.’_

There’s only ‘forever’ in their room now, one of warmth, and kisses, and love.


End file.
